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Obesity in Acute Myelogenous Leukemia

Comparing survival rates in patients with APL and non-APL AML

Publish date:: December 2, 2015

Obesity has significant prognostic value for disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) in patients with acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL), but not for patients with non-APL acute myelogenous leukemia (AML), according to a study of 446 patients with APL and 1,648 patients aged 18 to 60 years with non-APL AML. Researchers found:

• Obesity was seen in 50% of patients with APL and 38% of patients with non-APL AML.

• In patients with APL, obesity was associated with worse DFS and OS, after adjusting for age, sex, performance status, race, ethnicity, treatment arm, and baseline white blood cell count.

• In patients with non-APL AML, obesity was not significantly associated with DFS or OS.

Citation: Castillo JJ, Mulkey F, Geyer S, et al. Relationship between obesity and clinical outcome in adults with acute myeloid leukemia: A pooled analysis from four CALGB (alliance) clinical trials. [Published online ahead of print November 3, 2015]. Am J Hematol. doi: 10.1002/ajh.24230.

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